Career trauma is real. If you’ve ever experienced it, you know firsthand the destructive impact it can have, not just on your work, but literally on all areas of your life. Many are the accounts of fellow working women and moms who have suffered horribly from the effects of career trauma, from acute stress and depression to complete career loss and change…
Career trauma can come in many forms and manifest in different ways. While most of us can experience positive growth and expansion from the work we do, many among us can also be confronted with the very opposite. Toxic environments, for instance, can cause real and damaging distress, through hurtful and negative behaviors such as bullying, betrayal, or cut-throat competition. Poor, ineffective and at times downright terrible managers, may also create or contribute to career trauma, reinforcing the concept that “people don’t leave companies, they actually leave managers”. Not to mention the brutal effects of company restructuring, downsizing, and reorganizations on employees. All these factors, and so many others, can make it hard for people to recover their sense of wholeness and professional confidence after dealing with career trauma.
For so many of us, especially as working women and moms, our careers are not only part of our identity, but define who we are and what we stand for at the core. Having this part of our selves be taken away from us, or diminished in a significant way, can terribly alter our sense of self along with our perception of others. Additionally, considering that women tend to be more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than men, the consequences of career trauma can be disproportionately more acute for the latter. As a matter of fact, much of the “she-cession” resulting in millions of women exiting the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, is hailed as a mental health crisis as well as an economic and societal one.
Yet, despite the devastating effects of career trauma, there are ways to recover from it and go on to have a successful career. Here are a few of these:
Reframe your career narrative
Perspective is everything, and how we frame our experiences can turn them into lifelong obstacles or opportunities. The latter is best. Reframing your career narrative to see opportunities for growth, re-direction and expansion rather than loss and trauma can go a long way towards healing, but also towards making a new start.
Let go of what you cannot control
Some circumstances, events and people are just outside of our control. This includes sabotaging co-workers, ineffective managers, or antiquated organizational structures, to cite just a few. Rather than focusing on the trauma these can create, it’s best to learn to release control and instead work on what we can control, including our attitudes, responses, and resulting choices.
Seek the support you need
Career trauma is a direct, and painful attack on our mental health. As much as we may try and implement positive and proactive ways to recover from it, we may still need a certain level of support to overcome it altogether. This can come in the form of trustworthy friends and family members, or even more formal and professional assistance such as therapy.
Yes, career trauma is real and can happen to the best of us. Yet, by reframing our career narrative, letting go of what we cannot control, and seeking the support we need, we can minimize its negative effects, and successfully recover from it.
A woman suffering from severe trauma from being psychologically abused in her childhood once told me about not being able to speak up at work to save her life. Another woman who’s had a difficult relationship with her mother revealed to me she could not trust any source of authority in the workplace. Yet another woman who grew up without her dad found herself lowballing every job offer, jumping from company to company looking for a sense of fulfillment and purpose.
None of us is immune from trauma. As a matter of fact, most, if not all of us, have experienced some form of trauma or another, stemming from as far back as childhood and reverberating in many parts of our lives. However, we seldom realize that one of the areas profoundly affected by is our careers. I remember working with a business coach a few years back. One of the most shocking questions she asked me back then as we working through some business challenges, was if I knew of any resentment or trauma I was holding on to. As I came to understand later on, the very negative mental health patterns and trauma we carry through our lives can prevent us from reaching our full potential, not just personally, but also professionally.
As a matter of fact, when it comes to trauma, women tend to be more affected than men. According to the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), five in ten women suffer through a traumatic event. While both men and women experience the same PTSD symptoms, some symptoms are more commonly experienced by women, who also tend to report different traumas than men. This has certainly been intensified by the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected women in general, and mothers in particular.
If you’ve been held back in your career, and do not quite understand why, there may be some unhealed trauma at the root of it. Childhood trauma especially can not only impact your physical condition in the form of heart attacks, obesity cancer or diabetes. It can also manifest in your life and career as lack of self-esteem, confidence and/or self-blame issues.
This can be compounded even further by the sometimes negative impact our careers can have on our mental health, from the exhausting impact of gender discrimination, the disheartening effect of lack of gender equity, not to mention the stress of professional competition, heavy workflow and frequent loss of self through work.
Furthermore, when trauma creates certain types of pathologies in individuals, it can also affect an entire workplace. For instance, research shows an existing association between Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and fraudulent behavior, leading to corporate scandals of disastrous proportions. Considering the impact of corporate scandals, as well as the interplay between leadership traits, corporate strategy and stakeholders’ interests, the impact of unhealed trauma at work cannot be understated.
As all these issues can seriously hinder one’s career progress and success, it is crucial to seriously consider and address them as part of one’s career development. This can be done through a personal process of self-introspection, some serious soul-searching, or even therapy. On a larger scale, it can also serve as a warning not to relegate mental health to the back burner when considering important career decisions on a personal and even organizational level. Instead, integrating mental health as an integral part of career development and corporate strategy should become a priority.
Do you believe unhealed trauma may kill one’ s career? Have you had to deal with unhealed trauma in your career?
If you spend the majority of your time at work, it’s safe to say your career definitely has an impact on your life. Even if you’re working reduced hours or part-time, the quality of the hours spent working is bound to have an indelible effect on you. This is especially true if you’re a working woman and/or mom, as you may already handle the mental and emotional toll from all the other areas of your life, including motherhood, marriage, and caregiving, just to cite a few…Considering more women tend to be more prone to depression and other mental health conditions, a career that exacerbates the latter could literally turn deadly…Does this mean women may have to choose between work and mental health?
Research shows 18% of employees aged 15 to 54 report symptoms of mental health troubles. However, due to the stigma attached to mental health issues, there may be a general reluctance by employees to admit to these or seek treatment. Furthermore, mental health disorders tend to be concealed in the workplace for fear of retaliation or judgment, when they’re not flat-out overlooked. Among these mental health disorders, depression is prevalent and affects more women than men, at a rate of eight women for each man affected. Other disorders such as anxiety, sexual trauma-related PTSD and bipolar disorder also tend to affect more women, or have different effects on them. Married women particularly appear to be more at risk for mental illnesses, mostly stemming from husbands’ negative reactions to their partners’ paid work and lacking participation in childcare.
The reality is, unless you have found a career aligned with your purpose, schedule and values, or are striving to build one, your career may be undermining your mental health. Even if and when you are fortunate enough to work in a career you love, there may still be societal, relational and other ramifications of it, from the backlash effect suffered by women who dare to go against traditional gender norms, to the stigma often plaguing working women and moms.
While some of the threats to your mental health may be directly related to your work and professional environment, many other factors, including your mental load, your childcare and caregiving responsibilities, your family and personal environment may also play an important role in literally destroying your mental health.
What then is the alternative for working women and moms? Is it to give up on the prospect of purposeful professional fulfillment and settle for less? Or is it to brave numerous and sometimes unforgiving career obstacles seeping into our personal lives at the high cost of our mental health and balance? I don’t believe there is an “either or” answer to these questions. What there is, is the reality of the purposeful battle for gender equity in and outside of the workplace, and that of the heated, century-long opposition against us. In the midst of it all, stands the flaming hope that the many women’s (and men’s) voices loudly and blazingly uncovering this brewing female mental health crisis will succeed at awakening the dormant public consciousness to the mental plight of working women and moms.
In the meantime, we shall keep sounding the alarm, loudly, unapologetically, relentlessly…
Welcome to our news roundup where we gather the news that impacted us the most around working women and working moms…
In historical news this week, Black Enterprise reports Vice-President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made history as the first women to lead the House and Senate during the Presidential address;
There are many false myths surrounding working mothers, most of which carry their fair share of negativity and judgment. These are oftentimes erroneous ideas about what it means to be a striving, growing and thriving working mom. Unfortunately, these are also ideas that pervade our society, workplaces and social environments, and work against positively understanding and supporting working mothers in and outside of the workplace.
These misconceptions are at the root of most of the systemic inequities in pay, benefits and perceived ability and competence, encountered by mothers in the workplace. As a matter of fact, research by the National Women’s Law Center’s shows U.S. mothers working full-time being paid on average $18,000 less per year than fathers. This loss in earnings is compounded for mothers of color and in some states. This financial loss, also coined as the “motherhood penalty”, further affects working moms’ ability to be hired, promoted, and generally recognized and rewarded in their careers. The COVID-19 pandemic, with the combined impact of remote work and amplified childcare demands, has managed to amplify these biases against working moms. As a result, one in four women is considering a career downshift or exit post-pandemic, according to the 2020 McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace report.
Outside of the workplace, these false myths contribute to the existing and growing “backlash effect” against professionally thriving working women and moms alike. These are the negative social and economic effects women and moms experience for behaving counter-stereotypically by engaging in self-promotion, or showing themselves to be competent and ambitious.
As a working mom, you may have experienced the impact of these misconceptions in and outside of work. You may as a result have had to deal with being perceived in a negative way, and maybe feeling guilt as a result of it, or having to defend your personal and professional choices at your own expense.
Here are some of these false myths and misconceptions you may recognize:
She must not have enough time to dedicate to her career and her family
Working moms have notoriously been penalized for, well…being working moms. One of the wide-ranging assumptions made about them is that once they have children, they are now limited in their careers. It’s widely assumed that working mothers do not have the necessary time and dedication to grow and advance in their careers, and as a result, are kept out of advancement and growth opportunities at work.
She must be less competent because she has kids
Another false assumption surrounding working mothers, is that they tend to be less competent. It is as if having children somehow lessens one’s intelligence and ability to function in the workplace. The reality is much different however. Mothers bring an unprecedented and unique set of skills at all levels of organizations, from the administrative desk to the boardroom. Yet, as revealed by the Modern Family Index, 60% of working Americans admit to career opportunities being afforded to less qualified employees rather than more competent working moms.
If she spends time at work, she must not be spending time with her children
While many of the misconceptions around working mothers are centered on their imagined professional deficiencies, many are direct attacks at their very ability to mother. Many a working mom has had to deal with the muted, or not-so-muted reproaches as to their career and schedule choices. Somehow, the antiquated notion that women cannot combine work and family casts a shadow of doubt on working mothers, relegating them to the ranks of lesser mothers by virtue of the time they spend at work or at home.
If she spends a lot of time at work, she must not have a good marriage
The same assumption as the one pervading working moms’ relationships with their children, also surrounds their marriages relationship with their significant others. False ideas about working mothers may have us believe they make poor partners or wives, and may not be dedicated enough to their relationships. Yet, a 2011 study in the Journal of Psychologyreveals higher marital satisfaction in couples where the wife continued working after kids. As women work more outside of the home, their partners may be more inclined to step up more at home and with the kids. On the other hand, there may be more of a perception that women working from home, or stay-at-home moms, may be available to handle all of the household duties.
If you’re been reading and nodding your head along, you may very well have experienced one, or many, if not all of these false myths about being a working mom. Beyond being just grossly inaccurate and borderline insulting, these are also misconceptions that carry too heavy a weight for mothers. It is up to each and every one of us to not only acknowledge these, but also to stop feeding, even if unconsciously, these false ideas. Instead, in each and every one of our capacities as women and men, it is our responsibility to change the narrative around what it truly means to be a working mother, and prompt our organizations, structures and society, to r-create a more accurate and better suited story around working moms.
